Thanks Vivian and Judy for forwarding this information. The fact that it happens to any of us at this age is to be expected, but that it took place two months ago shocked me into recognition of how close what seems far away can actually be.
Steven
December 1942-March 2022
Dear Bob
Deborah phoned me with word of your death a couple of weeks ago. Since then, you’ve been more present to me than even during the intense emails we’ve exchanged since the reunion I attended at your home in 1996. I regretfully declined to join any more of them because of the difficulty I’ve always experienced relating to individuals within the framework of the group. With no one was that contradiction between social and individual relationships more pronounced than with you.
Back in Netherland Park your role as the classic alpha male made you seem larger than life and me to almost disappear as the tiny omega called “mousie.” And when the girl I’d been in love with since fourth grade started going with you the annihilation felt complete. (more…)
Once the phone clock signaled the end of this morning’s meditation, as always, I concluded with the Jewish prayer: “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” After 30 minutes of effort to calm my troubled thinking, I often find a moment of relaxation in shifting register to this plea before throwing off the blanket, turning on the light and taking up the day’s work.
Today that prayer to the void was accompanied by more self-observation and a silent word: “broken.” An association swam up from below: George Herbert’s “The Broken Altar” and behind it Leonard Cohen’s “cold and broken hallelujah.” Next came the toothy jaws of a literary critic which gulped up both and smiled.
